Analysis: Xbox 360 poised to pass Wii in US sales by year’s end

Nintendo maintains worldwide sales lead, though, thanks in large part to Japan.

It's practically conventional wisdom at this point that the Wii has been the best-selling system of this console generation, overall. By sustaining retail sellouts for months after launch and routinely selling millions of consoles every holiday season, the Wii built up what was a seemingly insurmountable lead in the American gaming hardware market, judged purely on raw hardware sales (software sales and hours of play are different matters, of course).

But the conventional wisdom is wrong, at least in the US. Over the past three years, Microsoft has consistently eaten into Nintendo's "insurmountable" US sales lead, to the point that it seems that the Xbox 360 will end the year as the system with the most lifetime sales in America.

In the US, the Wii started out nearly 3 million units behind the Xbox 360 in the sales race, simply by dint of launching a year later. Nintendo's cheaper system quickly ate into that sales margin, though, and it had officially sold more Wiis in the US than Microsoft sold Xbox 360s by June 2008, according to data released by tracking firm NPD and the console makers themselves (the PS3 consistently lagged behind both systems in the US). The Wii sales bonanza didn't slow down from there, and by May of 2010 there were over nine million more Wii units circulating in the country than there were Xbox 360 units.

Unfortunately for Nintendo, this would represent the high-water mark as far as the system's dominance of the American sales charts. For the last three years (starting in June of 2010), the Xbox 360 has outsold the Wii in the US every single month (save for December 2008, when a sales surge led the Wii to beat the Xbox 360 by half a million units). Microsoft's sustained sales dominance in that period has reduced the Wii's American sales lead from over 9 million systems three years ago to just under 2 million units today.

Of course, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony will all have new consoles available by the end of the year, meaning time is starting to run out for the current generation of consoles. Will Nintendo be able to essentially run out the clock and maintain its dwindling US sales lead until Microsoft finally stops producing the Xbox 360?

It seems exceedingly unlikely. Over the last 12 months, the Xbox 360 has outsold the Wii in the US by an average of about 278,000 units a month. At that rate, the Wii's current accumulated lead will be completely dried up just in time for Christmas.

Note as well that the Xbox 360 outsold the Wii by 1.75 million units in November and December of last year alone. A repeat of that kind of performance would knock out practically all of Nintendo's current sales lead in one fell swoop. And there's reason to believe the Xbox 360 might have an even more dominant holiday season this time around, since the Xbox 360 still has a robust lineup of games planned for release later in 2013, compared to only a handful of licensed and multiplatform titles on the Wii.

Microsoft also seems poised to pad its US sales lead a little bit more before the Xbox 360 and Wii officially go the way of the dodo. Though Microsoft stopped producing the original Xbox hardware relatively quickly after the Xbox 360 came out in late 2005, Microsoft has said it plans for the Xbox 360 to continue selling for the next five years. That plan might not be so far-fetched; Sony didn't stop producing the PlayStation 2 hardware until earlier this year.

The sales situation in the US is being mirrored in the UK, where tracking firm Chart-Track confirmed today that the Xbox 360 is days away from taking the overall lifetime sales lead in the country, with both systems right around 8.4 million in total sales.

Nintendo fans can take heart, though, that the Wii is maintaining a sizeable sales lead in the rest of the world. That's especially true in Japan, where statistics from tracking firm Media Create (compiled here) show the Xbox 360 has sold a paltry 1.63 million units in the country through June 9, compared to 12.68 million lifetime Japanese Wii sales (and 9.3 million PS3 sales). The Xbox 360 isn't really poised for a US-style sales comeback in Japan either—the system's weekly sales in the country are now measured in the hundreds rather than the hundreds of thousands.

Enlarge/ Note: Data for this chart based on the best available information from within the past six months. Current numbers may vary slightly due to time differences. UK PS3 estimate extrapolated from 5 million sales announcement in October 2012. Sources: NPD, Media Create, Chart Track, official console maker announcements.

Current, precise numbers for other countries are hard to come by, but official data released by the three console manufacturers in recent months show the Wii as the best-selling system worldwide by a good margin, with somewhere around 100 million worldwide sales (99.84 million in March, to be precise). The Xbox 360 and PS3, on the other hand, are both hovering around three-quarters of that amount (75.9 million for the 360 as of March and 75 million even for the PS3 as of December). As you can see from the above chart, though, those sales are distributed very differently between the various major sales regions for game consoles.

Will either Sony or Microsoft be able to take the worldwide sales crown from Nintendo in the next few years? It seems unlikely. Then again, it seemed unlikely back in 2010 that the Xbox 360 would ever be able to eliminate the Wii's sizeable sales lead in the US. Now, that seems inevitable.

Do these horse race numbers really matter to the health of the three major console makers going forward? Not really, at a granular level. Still, it's interesting to see just how the trajectory of the concluding console generation has changed substantially over time and how much the competitive environment varies in different parts of the world. Plus, it's always fun to claim bragging rights for your console of choice.

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Just how many 360s were replacements? RROD was a real pain in the ass for Microsoft.

The biggest thing I took from this data is that "Rest of the world" represents roughly half of all the console's sales. Even if you have the best game targeting the big 3 markets(nigh impossible), that's still half of the potential consoles out there.

217 posts | registered Apr 19, 2012

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Um, the conventional wisdom isn't wrong, you just found a subset where you are right. That happens with everything. I bet you there's some place somewhere that the Gamecube beat PS2 in sales. Plus, there's the backwards compatibility issue. Wii console buying is not so useful now that Wii U has backwards compatibility but the 360 as far as I know, is not compatible with the Xbox One.

You also have to remember that several people bought multiple XBox 360s due to RROD issues, I imagine the number of people who bought multiple Wiis due to hardware failure is much lower. That will potentially skew the sales in Microsoft's favour, though by how much will probably be difficult to determine.

Not regarding the actual value of the data, I would be more curious in the play time and software sales numbers. The Wii and XBox also sell/sold at different prices. Based on that, what are the raw revenue numbers, or the profit numbers? I'd also be curious in the demographics of the buyers. Those sorts of numbers would have more salient info regarding the state and direction of of the market. What about mobile, PC, and other sales numbers?

That aside, you just made some pretty graphs and wanted an excuse to publish them, methinks .

Not regarding the actual value of the data, I would be more curious in the play time and software sales numbers. The Wii and XBox also sell/sold at different prices. Based on that, what are the raw revenue numbers, or the profit numbers? I'd also be curious in the demographics of the buyers. Those sorts of numbers would have more salient info regarding the state and direction of of the market. What about mobile, PC, and other sales numbers?

That aside, you just made some pretty graphs and wanted an excuse to publish them, methinks .

I would also be interested in all of that, but unfortunately, that data is just not out there in any real, public form.

You also have to remember that several people bought multiple XBox 360s due to RROD issues, I imagine the number of people who bought multiple Wiis due to hardware failure is much lower. That will potentially skew the sales in Microsoft's favour, though by how much will probably be difficult to determine.

I have a dead 360 and a dead Wii, and oddly enough both due to bad optical drives. I'm not in love with either platform and not especially eager to replace either one, but my family actually uses the Wii.

In that case, despite the price discrepancy, the Wii-U is the only logical choice to buy new (vs. picking up a used Wii on the cheap.) The fact that the final 360 design didn't come with a price drop is disappointing. Having said that, it's the only choice I have if I want to bring my old, dead 360 back from the grave.

It seems exceedingly unlikely. Over the last 12 months, the Xbox 360 has outsold the Wii in the US by an average of about 278,000 units a month. At that rate, the Wii's current accumulated lead will be completely dried up just in time for Christmas.

Note as well that the Xbox 360 outsold the Wii by 1.75 million units in November and December of last year alone. A repeat of that kind of performance would knock out practically all of Nintendo's current sales lead in one fell swoop. And there's reason to believe the Xbox 360 might have an even more dominant holiday season this time around, since the Xbox 360 still has a robust line up of games planned for release later in 2013, compared to only a handful of licensed and multiplatform titles on the Wii.

This is just plain stupid.

Firstly, 278,000 per month means 3,336,000 total in the past 12 months. Of those were 1.75m in two months, leaving 1,586,000 per month for the other ten months. That leaves us with an average of 158,600 per month for those months, making it incredibly unlikely that it'll surpass it prior to the Christmas period. The 278,000 is doubly unlikely since Microsoft sold 270,000 360's in October and September and 193,000 in August, and this year has been worse for consoles than last year. It may happen with the Christmas sales, but it'll take those Christmas sales happening to make the difference. Going by lower sales in the market, I'd go with it happening next year though.

Secondly, the Wii U was released Christmas period last year, putting a pretty large dampener on Wii sales, the XB1 will be released for the Christmas period this year putting a huge dampener on Xbox360 sales.

Sometimes I wish egregious abuse of statistics was a crime, because this is a perfect example of it.

It seems exceedingly unlikely. Over the last 12 months, the Xbox 360 has outsold the Wii in the US by an average of about 278,000 units a month. At that rate, the Wii's current accumulated lead will be completely dried up just in time for Christmas.

Note as well that the Xbox 360 outsold the Wii by 1.75 million units in November and December of last year alone. A repeat of that kind of performance would knock out practically all of Nintendo's current sales lead in one fell swoop. And there's reason to believe the Xbox 360 might have an even more dominant holiday season this time around, since the Xbox 360 still has a robust line up of games planned for release later in 2013, compared to only a handful of licensed and multiplatform titles on the Wii.

This is just plain stupid.

Firstly, 278,000 per month means 3,336,000 total in the past 12 months. Of those were 1.75m in two months, leaving 1,586,000 per month for the other ten months. That leaves us with an average of 158,600 per month for those months, making it incredibly unlikely that it'll surpass it prior to the Christmas period. The 278,000 is doubly unlikely since Microsoft sold 270,000 360's in October and September and 193,000 in August, and this year has been worse for consoles than last year.

Secondly, the Wii U was released Christmas period last year, putting a pretty large dampener on Wii sales, the XB1 will be released for the Christmas period this year putting a huge dampener on Xbox360 sales.

Sometimes I wish egregious abuse of statistics was a crime, because this is a perfect example of it.

The Christmas period is before the end of the year, so I'm not really sure why you'd throw out the November and December numbers from last year.

As for the future, it's true that it may not resemble the past, for any number of reasons, but a scenario where the Wii craters even further and the Xbox 360 is inflated by being seen as a cheap alternative to the high-priced Xbox One is just as possible as your scenario.

In any case, as the article lays out, the current track will have the 360 ahead by the beginning of 2014. I fully admit that it is possible for that track to change, but I am not a psychic. I'm just laying out what the numbers we have right now show.

Just how many 360s were replacements? RROD was a real pain in the ass for Microsoft.

The biggest thing I took from this data is that "Rest of the world" represents roughly half of all the console's sales. Even if you have the best game targeting the big 3 markets(nigh impossible), that's still half of the potential consoles out there.

On the other hand, Nintendo actually made a profit selling each of those Wiis, unlike its competitors. I'm not surprised MS and Sony want to stretch out the current gen's commercial life, presumably they're actually making money selling them now and must have a lot of initial investment and pain to recoup.

Just how many 360s were replacements? RROD was a real pain in the ass for Microsoft.

The biggest thing I took from this data is that "Rest of the world" represents roughly half of all the console's sales. Even if you have the best game targeting the big 3 markets(nigh impossible), that's still half of the potential consoles out there.

And to add to that, how many of those countries are officially supported by the online shops and content portals built into the upcoming consoles? Microsoft has pushed hard for their Xbox One's TV/video content integration, but capturing the rights to these services on a region-by-region basis is going to be even harder than making sure your storefront is properly localized and can interface with the local payment method of choice.

It seems exceedingly unlikely. Over the last 12 months, the Xbox 360 has outsold the Wii in the US by an average of about 278,000 units a month. At that rate, the Wii's current accumulated lead will be completely dried up just in time for Christmas.

Note as well that the Xbox 360 outsold the Wii by 1.75 million units in November and December of last year alone. A repeat of that kind of performance would knock out practically all of Nintendo's current sales lead in one fell swoop. And there's reason to believe the Xbox 360 might have an even more dominant holiday season this time around, since the Xbox 360 still has a robust line up of games planned for release later in 2013, compared to only a handful of licensed and multiplatform titles on the Wii.

This is just plain stupid.

Firstly, 278,000 per month means 3,336,000 total in the past 12 months. Of those were 1.75m in two months, leaving 1,586,000 per month for the other ten months. That leaves us with an average of 158,600 per month for those months, making it incredibly unlikely that it'll surpass it prior to the Christmas period. The 278,000 is doubly unlikely since Microsoft sold 270,000 360's in October and September and 193,000 in August, and this year has been worse for consoles than last year.

Secondly, the Wii U was released Christmas period last year, putting a pretty large dampener on Wii sales, the XB1 will be released for the Christmas period this year putting a huge dampener on Xbox360 sales.

Sometimes I wish egregious abuse of statistics was a crime, because this is a perfect example of it.

The Christmas period is before the end of the year, so I'm not really sure why you'd throw out the November and December numbers from last year.

As for the future, it's true that it may not resemble the past, for any number of reasons, but a scenario where the Wii craters even further and the Xbox 360 is inflated by being seen as a cheap alternative to the high-priced Xbox One is just as possible as your scenario.

In any case, as the article lays out, the current track will have the 360 ahead by the beginning of 2014. I fully admit that it is possible for that track to change, but I am not a psychic. I'm just laying out what the numbers we have right now show.

Your analysis is spot on. I have been saying this for a while now. Running the numbers makes it HIGHLY likely it will happen by years end. It might take through January of 2014, but not much longer, if that.

His post is much more about disliking that the 360 will pass the Wii than "bad statistics".

Not regarding the actual value of the data, I would be more curious in the play time and software sales numbers.

Well I can tell you that my 360 has gotten considerably more use than my Wii or any other console I've ever owned, thanks to Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim!

Let me derail this topic by stating the obvious fact that Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim are primarily PC games. Also Oblivion and Fallout 3 are not even very demanding ones at that.Then again, I'll admit to having bought around 7 (mainly) PC games for console because they were simply too demanding of my PC (or terrible ports, or both).

Not regarding the actual value of the data, I would be more curious in the play time and software sales numbers.

Well I can tell you that my 360 has gotten considerably more use than my Wii or any other console I've ever owned, thanks to Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim!

Let me derail this topic by stating the obvious fact that Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim are primarily PC games. Also Oblivion and Fallout 3 are not even very demanding ones at that.Then again, I'll admit to having bought around 7 (mainly) PC games for console because they were simply too demanding of my PC (or terrible ports, or both).

And I'll derail it even further, saying the F3 sucks and New Vegas is the true Fallout.

Not regarding the actual value of the data, I would be more curious in the play time and software sales numbers. The Wii and XBox also sell/sold at different prices. Based on that, what are the raw revenue numbers, or the profit numbers? I'd also be curious in the demographics of the buyers. Those sorts of numbers would have more salient info regarding the state and direction of of the market. What about mobile, PC, and other sales numbers?

That aside, you just made some pretty graphs and wanted an excuse to publish them, methinks .

If I recall correctly, Microsoft sold the Xbox 360 at a loss to try and saturate the market, and make up the difference from getting a slice of game sales. Nintendo's profit per Wii varies per region, as well. In short, it's complicated

the Wii is dead right? no one is making games for it anymore i thought.Nintendo's efforts are 100% with the WiiU now?

Effectively. Neither Nintendo nor most publishers are paying the Wii much attention any longer. The same cannot be said of the 360 and PS3.

Does this make it a two horse race going into the future then? With identical architectures Sony is not the development pain king anymore so it seems pretty even except for price and Kinect vs optional camera. Does iOS and Android wtf kill Wii this round?

Just how many 360s were replacements? RROD was a real pain in the ass for Microsoft.

The biggest thing I took from this data is that "Rest of the world" represents roughly half of all the console's sales. Even if you have the best game targeting the big 3 markets(nigh impossible), that's still half of the potential consoles out there.

While an interesting observation, this graphic is misleading because it is missing the largest market, the EU. Only the UK was included. You can probable replace the UK portion by USA sized one, except PS3 and Xbox360 sales have almost the reverse proportion compared to the US. Once you do that you realize that "the rest of the world" is not that big after all (but still significant).

It seems exceedingly unlikely. Over the last 12 months, the Xbox 360 has outsold the Wii in the US by an average of about 278,000 units a month. At that rate, the Wii's current accumulated lead will be completely dried up just in time for Christmas.

Note as well that the Xbox 360 outsold the Wii by 1.75 million units in November and December of last year alone. A repeat of that kind of performance would knock out practically all of Nintendo's current sales lead in one fell swoop. And there's reason to believe the Xbox 360 might have an even more dominant holiday season this time around, since the Xbox 360 still has a robust line up of games planned for release later in 2013, compared to only a handful of licensed and multiplatform titles on the Wii.

This is just plain stupid.

Firstly, 278,000 per month means 3,336,000 total in the past 12 months. Of those were 1.75m in two months, leaving 1,586,000 per month for the other ten months. That leaves us with an average of 158,600 per month for those months, making it incredibly unlikely that it'll surpass it prior to the Christmas period. The 278,000 is doubly unlikely since Microsoft sold 270,000 360's in October and September and 193,000 in August, and this year has been worse for consoles than last year.

Secondly, the Wii U was released Christmas period last year, putting a pretty large dampener on Wii sales, the XB1 will be released for the Christmas period this year putting a huge dampener on Xbox360 sales.

Sometimes I wish egregious abuse of statistics was a crime, because this is a perfect example of it.

The Christmas period is before the end of the year, so I'm not really sure why you'd throw out the November and December numbers from last year.

As for the future, it's true that it may not resemble the past, for any number of reasons, but a scenario where the Wii craters even further and the Xbox 360 is inflated by being seen as a cheap alternative to the high-priced Xbox One is just as possible as your scenario.

In any case, as the article lays out, the current track will have the 360 ahead by the beginning of 2014. I fully admit that it is possible for that track to change, but I am not a psychic. I'm just laying out what the numbers we have right now show.

Your analysis is spot on. I have been saying this for a while now. Running the numbers makes it HIGHLY likely it will happen by years end. It might take through January of 2014, but not much longer, if that.

His post is much more about disliking that the 360 will pass the Wii than "bad statistics".

No, his post comes from the fact that he's an accountant who develops a twitch when people throw numbers around without any explanation of what they mean and why they're probably wrong. Personally I'm a PC gamer who owns a PS3 for exclusives and it made a cheap bluray player. Couldn't care less about the numbers, two prior gen consoles battling it out for the sales crown in a country I don't live in? Please. But so far we've seen quite a drop in sales, in May 2013 Microsoft sold 114k units, compared to 160k the year before. There's a pretty good chance they won't even sell 2m units before the end of the year with the upcoming consoles. The 360 will pass the Wii, that's basically a given at this point because the 360 is better supported and selling way more each month, but come on, some work besides some pretty graphics could have gone into the article.

I also took "dried up just in time for Christmas." to mean prior to the Christmas season, my apologies Kyle, it could come close. It's unlikely though, . Sorry about the "plain stupid" and calls for incrimination

If you had 5 replacement units, that is still tracked as ONE unit sold. The replacements don't enter into the discussion about sales units, but do on corporate profit sheets (as a loss).

That's a good point. However, my first of two RROD incidents happened well beyond the warranty period. So I think the RROD still factors in, although it's probably impossible to accurately speculate how many units it accounts for.

Just how many 360s were replacements? RROD was a real pain in the ass for Microsoft.

The biggest thing I took from this data is that "Rest of the world" represents roughly half of all the console's sales. Even if you have the best game targeting the big 3 markets(nigh impossible), that's still half of the potential consoles out there.

While an interesting observation, this graphic is misleading because it is missing the largest market, the EU. Only the UK was included. You can probable replace the UK portion by USA sized one, except PS3 and Xbox360 sales have almost the reverse proportion compared to the US. Once you do that you realize that "the rest of the world" is not that big after all (but still significant).

If you had 5 replacement units, that is still tracked as ONE unit sold. The replacements don't enter into the discussion about sales units, but do on corporate profit sheets (as a loss).

That's a good point. However, my first of two RROD incidents happened well beyond the warranty period. So I think the RROD still factors in, although it's probably impossible to accurately speculate how many units it accounts for.

This is what I meant, many replacements were bought outside the official channels, but it's impossible to measure without working at Microsoft.

If you had 5 replacement units, that is still tracked as ONE unit sold. The replacements don't enter into the discussion about sales units, but do on corporate profit sheets (as a loss).

I think the question being asked was in reference to the not-insignificant portion of people that went out and bought additional X360s because, apparently, waiting a couple of weeks on a warranty RROD replacement was simply out of the question. Games are serious business, after all.

I have several friends who did this, justifying it to themselves as "oh well, now I'll have a backup/down/upstairs/basement/bedroom system"

If you had 5 replacement units, that is still tracked as ONE unit sold. The replacements don't enter into the discussion about sales units, but do on corporate profit sheets (as a loss).

That's a good point. However, my first of two RROD incidents happened well beyond the warranty period. So I think the RROD still factors in, although it's probably impossible to accurately speculate how many units it accounts for.

But if you bought a replacement unit, then that unit was sold to you, you sepnt money on it and microsoft (hopefully) made a profit on it.

The article is about unit sales, not unit install base, or hours played or used or software sales.

That's assuming that 360 sales remain constant over the next period. Surely nothing could happen in the next few months that would make purchasing a 360 less attractive. Wii sales also saw a huge drop when the WiiU came out, look at November 2012. Bad analysis is bad analysis.

Even in the US, I can't come to see this as some grand victory for Microsoft. Nintendo came out a year later and it's taken Microsoft 7 years, an eternity in video games just to come with 2 million of Nintendo. Sure they will probably pass them but that was at the behest of Nintendo basically abandoning the Wii for the Wii U anyway.

If you had 5 replacement units, that is still tracked as ONE unit sold. The replacements don't enter into the discussion about sales units, but do on corporate profit sheets (as a loss).

I think the question being asked was in reference to the not-insignificant portion of people that went out and bought additional X360s because, apparently, waiting a couple of weeks on a warranty RROD replacement was simply out of the question. Games are serious business, after all.

I have several friends who did this, justifying it to themselves as "oh well, now I'll have a backup/down/upstairs/basement/bedroom system"

Even in those cases though, as you noted, they were keeping and probably using both units. So how that shouldn't "count" as a sale is beyond me.

Also, what is your definition of "not insignificant"? 100,000? 1,000,000? Chances are, it *was* pretty insignificant to the overall numbers here. Even if 1,000,000 people bought replacement 360's because they didn't want to wait, that would only throw the sales data off by a bit less than 4 months at 278,000 units/month. And that number wasn't even TOTAL sales per month, but merely the number of units that the 360 outsold the Wii by.

So that's basically setting them back 4 months out of a total of 91 months on the market, or just over 4%. Personally, I would call that rather insignificant. And I highly doubt that the number of sales of non-warranty replacement RRoD replacements is even as high as 1,000,000.

Heck, even if we're talking about out of warranty replacements here, that's a mixed bag. The whole reason that MS extended the warranty period to 3 years was because most of the failures were happening within the first year or very shortly thereafter. Since MS also didn't require a receipt as long as the console manufacture date was within the 3 year period, this basically meant that you wouldn't have even seen one of those out of warranty replacements till November of 2008 at the earliest. Considering that there weren't a whole lot of complaints around that time of massive hardware failures of the likes we saw in 2006 or 2007, I don't think it was a large contributing factor.

By sustaining retail sellouts for months after launch and routinely selling millions of consoles every holiday season, the Wii built up what was a seemingly insurmountable lead in the American gaming hardware market, judged purely on raw hardware sales (software sales and hours of play are different matters, of course).

By August or so of 2007 monthly Wii software sales passed those on the 360. In November of 2007 Wii 3rd party monthly software sales passed the 360's. By mid 2008 cumulative Wii software sales passed the 360's.